Back To School

Yesterday dawned grey and overcast, very suiting to my mood as Daniel and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 7am to have one last breakfast before he had to take the bus to Avignon. It was cold and drizzling, the first day like that I've seen so far in Provence, a proper November, start of term kind of day. Talk about dramatic irony. As we sat and nursed our coffees neither of us had much to say, and we trudged to the bus stop in silence. Daniel had got on, paid and sorted his bags out, sitting in the front seat where I could see him, and I was waiting for the bus to pull away, wiping tears from my face when a french boy sidled up to me.
'You're waiting for the bus?'
'I don't speak French' (Normally a sure fire way to avoid a conversation you don't want to have)
'German?'
'No. English.'
'Ah. I don't speak English very well.'
'Mmm.'
'Do you live here?'
'Yes'
'Do you like it?'
'It's okay'
'I live in Cavaillon'
'Oh'
'Do you know it?'
'Not really'
'Do you want me to show you around'
'Perhaps not'
'Are you taking this bus?'
'No, I'm saying goodbye to my boyfriend'
'Your friend?'
'My boyfriend.'
'You are together?'
'Yes. We are together. Je suis en couple. JE SUIS EN COUPLE'
'Oh. Can I have your number?'
(At this point I started to laugh at the ridiculousness of the conversation, and could see Daniel gesticulating madly at me to stop talking to him)
'Excuse me,' I said, 'I'm going to cross the road and wave from the other side'.
'Ciao!' He said cheerily and I laughed. The bus started to pull away and I waved madly, still marveling at this boys choice of moment, and indeed all the madness of the experiences I've had here. 

Yesterday was also the first day of term, and I headed to school, huddled against the cold and had two lessons to teach, both on numbers. I decided to do fairly easy going game playing lessons, which is quite effective when teaching numbers. With the first class we played Bingo. When they had got their head around the preposterous idea of drawing a nine squared grid, (of course these were drawn painstakingly slowly with rulers and pencils, a lot of rubbing out, and corrections) and choosing nine numbers between one and thirty (which took a lot longer than you would think, believe me) I started to call the numbers. We had a few false finishes; the first boy who called Bingo had written 30 4 times, and the second girl had only filled 5 numbers in her grid. We played twice, and they seemed to enjoy it, and what's more it got them thinking individually about the vocabulary in a fun way.

In the second class, I did my first telling off. The children don't necessarily see me as an authoritative figure so when the teacher told the class that all chewing gum should be in the bin, two of the boys sitting in the corner where I was, pretended to drop their chewing gum in the bin before putting it back in their mouths. They thought this was a hilarious feat, and high fived each other for a bit before accidentally catching my stony gaze. 'Chewing gum. Bin.' I said, and fortunately they had the nerve to look ashamed and did as I said, because I would have had no follow up plan if they hadn't. This cheered me considerably and I began to look at my role with new importance. We played some counting games, and it all went well, especially because their teacher is really friendly and seems to appreciate my presence.

My third class was cancelled because the teacher was at a museum with her little ones, so I only worked an hour and a half, and went back to climb into bed with some Pumpkin and Stilton soup which was VERY good but VERY expensive (4€) and the One Tree Hill box set which I have started because I am confident it is such a long series with so many episodes in each season it will keep me entertained for a long time! 

rather less inspiring in the rain

This morning, I went out to the bike shop to look for my previously misplaced camera, and as soon as he saw me coming he laughed and reached behind the counter. I could have kissed him but I refrained and walking back to the apartment I switched it on to scroll through the photos I had taken over the weekend. Interestingly enough, when I pressed play I was looking at pictures from Christmas 2011, so the bike shop owner must have had an interesting day in the shop scrolling through 600 odd photos. I then walked up to school where I had three classes, all doing Halloween. This was fun and largely uneventful except for my second class where the teacher asked me to sing the English National Anthem and then teach it to her class. Anyone who has had the pleasure of hearing me sing I'm sure can empathise with the students as I struggled through a hesitant rendition of 'God Save Our Gracious Queen...'. That was traumatic, but then before I left four of the girls came up to me, a little bit giggly, a little bit nervous. 'Vous êtes très jolie.' (You are very pretty). I fawned and thanked them and left with a big smile on my face. Again, it is those things that make everything worth the effort here!!

After that I had a long chat with the headmaster and one of the other teachers about Apt and the catchment area. They were telling me how poor the town of Apt is compared to the surrounding villages, and the reason there is no technology in any of the schools is as a result of this poverty and the terrible management of the money, by the Mayor of the town. I would never have been able to talk like that with them in French a month ago so that was another positive reinforcement. And so, Tuesday is over, and two days of teaching have been done. I have a day off tomorrow in which I plan to be very french, go to a cafe and read some more of my french novel*. Then I have Thursday teaching and on Friday Becca and I are planning a trip to IKEA in Avignon to add some embellishments to the apartment and more importantly- buy a duvet! A drop from 25 degrees to 20 overnight is no joke! 

*could easily end up, don't go to a french cafe, get into bed with chocolate and One Tree Hill